Challenge: Little to no teenage subculture in the US

With a PoD of 1900, how can we get teenagers to have as few separate interests from adults as possible, with as little media appealing to them specifically as possible, and with teenagers being seen more generally as young trust worthy adults instead of older kids? Very little in terms of partying, drug and alcohol abuse, experimenting, ect...
 
With a PoD of 1900, how can we get teenagers to have as few separate interests from adults as possible, with as little media appealing to them specifically as possible, and with teenagers being seen more generally as young trust worthy adults instead of older kids? Very little in terms of partying, drug and alcohol abuse, experimenting, ect...

Don't ban child labour, or at least only restrict the dangerous occupations like coal mining and maybe set the working age at 10 or so for non-dangerous occupations.
End compulsory education at age 12 or 14. Perhaps even charge tuition for high school.
Prevent the rise of a middle class that can afford to spend money on their children for luxuries or give them allowances.
Poor families still expect kids to contribute once they can.
Welfare laws count *all* family income, not just that earned by adults.
Keep cars and gas so expensive that recreational use is mainly for the filthy rich.

IMHO, the main reason teenage culture exists is because kids have spending power (even if not always direct cash) out of proportion to their responsibilities.
 
Don't ban child labour, or at least only restrict the dangerous occupations like coal mining and maybe set the working age at 10 or so for non-dangerous occupations.
End compulsory education at age 12 or 14. Perhaps even charge tuition for high school.
Prevent the rise of a middle class that can afford to spend money on their children for luxuries or give them allowances.
Poor families still expect kids to contribute once they can.
Welfare laws count *all* family income, not just that earned by adults.
....

All those keep teenagers working alongside adults & forced to comply with adult mores without compromise. Those who don't will probably drift off into criminal activity. One of the drivers in the development of teen subculture was the social isolation of teens in the high school system. Exposed to a very small number of adults in a very artificial academic environment. The teens latched onto mores or norms outside the blue and white collar work world.
 

Deleted member 1487

Children of Men scenario where there are no teenagers?
 
Pretty much no child labor laws.

Hard to have much of a "youth culture" based on free-time and disposable income if you're working 40+ hours a week at 13.
 
Very few of the things mentioned here are desirable -- no middle class, child labor, no automobiles... that makes it seem like the youth subculture is a necessary side effect of a livable country. It probably goes beyond that. If working at 13 is considered the norm, that keeps a lot of bad kids out of trouble, for sure, but it also makes sure that there are very few Americans with the basic science and math knowledge required for designing WW2 aircraft and radars or for pioneering the space program. The end result in 1941 is probably an America that looks more like the Soviet Union in terms of industrialization and innovation. Lots of obedient agricultural workers and only a few upper-class students who know the Pythagorean or binomial theorems. The end result in 1960 is that the nation's legions of unskilled laborers are viewed as sad victims of capitalism, as the more meritocratic Soviet state buries America on the ash heap of history...

Preventing a youth culture might involve lots of things that look good at first glance, but, in a free society, it's perhaps impossible to stop adolescent rebellion to a significant extent, especially if that rebellion is to be suppressed through work. Such a free society may well not be proud of its teenagers, but there are important benefits to be gained down the road. And I mean solid, obvious benefits -- yes, there may be opposition to some political moves, but there will also be a middle class, and there will be workers and thinkers capable of maintaining a technological lead against a competing culture.
 
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